ARC Linkage Project 2007-2010
Chief investigators
A/Prof. Lynette Joubert (Social Work, University of Melbourne)
A/Prof. Carol Harvey (Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne)
A/Prof. Graeme Hawthorne (Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne)
Dr Enrico Cementon (SUMITT, DASWest)
Dr Sean Jespersen (Eastern Health Adult Mental Health Program)
Dr Anita Govindan (Mercy Mental Health)
Prof. Anne-Maree Kelly (Western Health)
Student
Nicole Hill
About the Project
Suicide Prevention in the Emergency Department (SPED) is an innovative project that aims to provide evidence relating to the efficacy of a brief community linkage intervention for those who present to a hospital emergency department (ED) having experienced self-harm, suicidal ideation or a suicide attempt.
Funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, SPED will use a quasi-experimental research design to investigate the effectiveness of the intervention at two Metropolitan Melbourne Hospitals: The Western Hospital, Footscray, will provide the intervention and the Werribee Mercy Hospital usual care.
Outcomes will be assessed by further episodes of deliberate self-harm, psychological well-being, psychiatric symptomatology, community linkage, and quality of life. This contact will be made face-to-face or by telephone, and will take approximately one-hour. Patients will be contacted four times by this researcher: within one-week, six-weeks, three-months and six-months of their index ED presentation. Outcomes will be based on effectiveness and cost.
It is intended this intervention will be a cost-effective method for responding to the multiple and complex behavioural and social issues that precipitate deliberate self-harm, but which are currently inadequately addressed in service provision and literature. This research will contribute significantly to current knowledge in the areas of: preventative health care; mental illness (specifically relating to depression and suicide); holistic management of deliberate self-harm; assertive community linkage; and brief client-centred psychotherapeutic interventions. This project is integral to further development of services for people presenting with deliberate self-harm and suicidal ideation to hospital Emergency Departments.